Gotham To Include A “Pre-Natal Robin”

Bruno Heller, show runner on Fox’s “Gotham,” has confirmed that this season we can expect a ‘prenatal Robin’ on the Batman prequel series. He tells EW:

“We’re going to do a prenatal origin story for Robin down the line. There are no MRIs involved. There’s an episode coming up where we learn how Robin’s parents got together.”

He also confirms that we will see a young version of Scarecrow this season:

“This is not a kid being a loony Scarecrow; this is a couple episodes about how that character has evolved-everyone’s character is formed in their childhood to some degree or another. His father is involved, as is part of the [character’s] mythology.”

On the other hand, rumors of Harley Quinn making an appearance this season are unfounded. She will appear further down the line though:

“That aspect of the show – which characters to use and when – is a source of constant discussion… We haven’t got Harley Quinn in it. Riddler’s girlfriend is coming up. And Harley Quinn is definitely planned for later on, but so far no.”

So why hold off on her? Heller says they don’t want to put too many bad guys in the first season:

“You can’t just keep pumping these characters into the show in a comic book sort of way, because you get the Super Friends effect – which isn’t a bad effect, but then you have spaceships and need to go underwater and get wacky villains and the rest of it. You have to work as a character piece first. First it has to be real.

We front-loaded [the show with iconic characters], which we had to do, both for story purposes and marketing purposes. We had to let people know it’s not just a hum-drum police procedural, it’s about these larger than life characters. If you do that you can’t just say, ‘Here’s one larger-than-life character, now wait for next season.’

Once we introduced those initial characters-Penguin, Riddler, Ivy, Selina-then we’ve slowed down with those aspects and we’re bringing in those iconic D.C characters in a much more measured way, which was always the intention. You have to have that amount of spice in the show to make it pop and different. Once the wheels are turning, it’s much easier to bring those characters in in subtle, organic ways. That’s the plan, anyway.”